29/11/2013 - Danish director Per Fly’s biopic of Swedish legendary singer-actress Monica Zetterlund has become the most popular film so far in Sweden in 2013, both among local and international releases

Danish director Per Fly’s Monica Z [+see also:
trailer
interview: Edda Magnason
interview: Per Fly
film profile] - the biopic of Swedish legendary singer-actress Monica Zetterlund, a former telephone operator who reigned over jazz clubs in Stockholm and New York and became a star on stage and on screen – has taken 500,188 admissions and €5 million in the Swedish box office for Svensk Filmindustri, to make it the most popular film so far in 2013, both among local and international releases.

“Through the film a new generation has discovered Monica Zetterlund, her world and her music, which was what I hoped for when we started the project,” said Swedish producer Lena Rehnberg, of StellaNova Film, who realised Swedish author Peter Birro’s script with Denmark’s Eyeworks Fine & Mellow (Thomas Gammeltoft).

Starring Swedish-Icelandic singer-songwriter and pianist Edda Magnason, Monica Z (aka Waltz for Monica)won the Nordic Film Prize at the Norwegian International Film Festival in Haugesund before it was launched in Sweden to a 3.89 rating on the Swedish Film Institute’s index (No 3 this year), according to leading Swedish media. SF International Sales has licensed the film to 19 territories, including France, Eastern Europe, Japan and China.

While Monica Z was a Swedish-Danish coproduction supported by the Swedish Film Institute, Swedish state funding has also been allocated to another two Nordic projects, the Finnish-Swedish Hallonbåtsflyktingen (English title tba) and the Norwegian-Swedish Here Is Harold.

The comedy from Swedish director Leif Lindblom follows a Finn who hates everything Finnish – since childhood he has wanted to be Swedish, and when on a ferry he meets a Swede who is tired of it, they decide to change identities. Already adapted for the screen, Finnish author Miika Nousiiainen’s 2007 novel will now be scripted by Erik Ahrnbom and Daniel Karlsson for Patrick Ryborn to produce for Sweden’s Eyeworks Film & TV Drama and Finland’s Matila Röhr Productions. The Swedish Film Institute will chip in €0.3 million.

Norwegian director Gunnar Vikene has himself scripted Here Is Harold from a novella by Norwegian author Frode Grytten, about Harold and his wife Marny who have for 40 years successfully been running a small furniture store in Åsane – then the Swedish IKEA chain arrives. Bankruptcy is looming, Marny dies, and Harold decides to kidnap IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad, whose fault it is. Norway’s Mer Film (Maria Ekerhovd) will produce with Sweden’s Migma Film and €0.1 million support from the Swedish institute.